1. Field
One embodiment of the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for information processing using face authentication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic mail (e-mail) has been in wide use for a long time. In particular, e-mail provides a convenience that telephones do not (e.g., the receiving end can view contents no matter when or where, and tends not to be bound time-wise to the time of reception). On the other hand, e-mail has the following drawbacks as compared with the telephones:
1> A keyboard is generally used to input information, which is a major hurdle for older people, small children or disabled people who are not good at typing.
2> A predetermined environment is needed to send and receive e-mail, but there is limitation (e.g., a mobile telephone, personal computer [PC] or the like is needed, and an environment where a network is available is demanded).
3> The telephone achieves its function when a direct conversation (talk) with a partner is held. However, e-mail requires the creation (input) of a document and is therefore not equal to the telephone in immediacy.
4> E-mail is not suitable, for example, when a plurality of persons such as family members see a message and independently reply to the message.
In addition, video telephones or video chats have heretofore been present in dedicated video telephones or personal computers. However, these are extensions of the telephones and do not provide the above-mentioned convenience of e-mail (e.g., there is no need for the presence of a partner at the right time and at the right place).
Japanese Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 2005-267146 (Document 1) discloses “a method and apparatus for creating electronic mail using an image recognition function” as a means of obtaining an e-mail environment where the above-mentioned drawbacks of e-mail are minimized.
According to this document, the face of a person in a picture taken by a camera of a mobile communication terminal is recognized, and a “table in which the faces of persons and their e-mail addresses are registered in advance” is searched for the recognized face. Thus, the e-mail address of the person in the picture is found so that the picture can be sent to this person. By this function, content to be sent by e-mail can be created without any keyboard as in the case of a picture. Consequently, even a user who is unaccustomed to the keyboard can send an e-mail.
Japanese Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 2001-203819 (Document 2) discloses a data registration method, wherein the necessity of the operation of a terminal by a partner is eliminated so that given data such as image data can be registered on the terminal of the partner, or information on e-mail standards supported by the terminal of the partner can be acquired and then registered in, for example, a telephone directory of a terminal at a sending end.
According to this document, information (e.g., a face) which is not included in the protocol of, for example, an e-mail is automatically acquired by the terminal at the receiving end from the terminal at the sending end after the reception of the e-mail, and can be registered in an address book of the terminal at the receiving end.
However, the problem associated with the “use of the face authentication function” shown in Document 1 is that, for example, an e-mail may be sent to the wrong person. That is, face recognition with one-hundred-percent accuracy is technically difficult at present by mechanical processing alone.
On the other hand, the following problems are included in the method shown in Document 2: the partner can not see a face if the face is not registered on the terminal at the sending end; and even if the face changes with, for example, growth, the face registered on the terminal at the receiving end remains the same and is not updated.